Archæological Work in Southern Mexico

Abstract

AFTER four month is of field work near San Lorenzo, Veracruz Stprolln southern Mexico, on the third of a group of important centres of the La Vent a culture, a join archæological expedition of the National Gemcaphic Society and the Smithsonian Institution, led by Dr. Matthew W. Stirling, has returned to Washington. The season's activities mark the conclusion of eight years of work by Dr. Stirling. The inquiries began in 1939 with the uncovering of a huge basalt sculpture in the form of a human head, near Tres Zapotes, a village in Veracruz State. The site proved to have been a ceremonial centre marked also by earthen mounds. One of the most important discoveries during the series of expeditions was made at Tres Zapotes in 1939–an inscribed stelar faring in Mayan characters the earliest recorded date, believed to be contemporary, so far brought to light in the western hemisphere. The date has been interpreted as 291 B.C. according to the Spinden correlation or 31 B.C., Thompson correlation. In the following year, Dr. Stirling and his associates began excavations at the site of La Venta, Tabasco, so rich in monuments and artefacts that it has given its name to the newly discovered culture. La Venta, unlike the other two ceremonial centres, was a place of burial for important personages among the La Venta people. The San Lorenzo site, worked in 1946, is the farthest inland of the three sites excavated. It lies about sixty miles from the Gulf of Mexico on the Rio Chiquito. It is also the most extensive of the centres, and there, apparently, the sculpture of the La Venta culture reached its highest development. The five huge heads discovered are for the most part better made, better preserved, and bigger titan those from the other locations. Some of the heads are nearly ten feet high and are estimated to wefgh more than twenty tons. It seems that the La Venta culture at Tres Zapotes started about A.D. 300 and lasted there until about A.D. 1000. The La Venta and San Lorenzo sites apparently were developed later and abandoned earlier. The correlation of art forms and pottery types points to the probability that the La Venta culture was a forerunner of much of the culture of the Mayas, the Toltecs and the Aztecs.